THE “WORLD’S” OPINION – NOT TO BE MISSED
Trans women in the Tel Aviv night. Demi-goddesses with sculpted bodies, twisting on their heels in the light of the headlights. It could be that one of them, Nathalie, made her way to Gaza. It may be a legend, but it makes for a film burning with light, There Belle of Gazaby Yolande Zauberman, filmed before the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023 – the documentary was presented in a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival on May 22.
This tightrope documentary closes the night trilogy begun with Would You Have Sex with an Arab (2011) and M (2018), multi-award winning, the trajectory of a man who was, in his childhood, the victim of sexual predators within the ultra-Orthodox community of Bnei Brak, in the suburbs of Tel Aviv (César for best documentary in 2020).
The filmmaker had been looking for this lady of the night for several years, seen during the filming of M. She then filmed almost by accident two girls running away on Hatnufa Street, a place of prostitution where drivers drive with their windows down. The filmmaker’s companion, Selim Nassib, in charge of sound, who speaks Arabic, spoke with them, before reporting to Yolande Zauberman: “You know one of them came from Gaza? » The Beauty of Gaza was born, like a myth, even before becoming a film. The director, in voice-over, tirelessly asks the same question, with supporting photos, throughout her meetings: “I’m looking for this woman, they say she comes from Gaza, do you know her”?
Heroic naked bodies
The same device is at work as in Would You Have Sex with an Arab, where Yolande Zauberman asks Tel Aviv partygoers if they could have a relationship with a Palestinian person. Answers vary (” Yes of course ” ; or “Just for one night, but not the wedding”…) and, through them, a whole range of reflections on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict opens up. An Israeli woman describes the incredible feeling of her first relationship with this former Palestinian lover. The feeling of making peace, she says. “It is not in bed that the conflict will be resolved”reacts for his part Juliano Mer-Khamis, actor, director and director, shot dead in April 2011, at the age of 52, in front of the Freedom Theater which he had co-founded, in the Jenin refugee camp – Would You Have Sex… is dedicated to him.
In The Beauty of Gaza, Yolande Zauberman leads the investigation, from a nightclub to the dark corners of the street, where sex workers try to make a living. The filmmaker, who holds the camera and films from a distance, lights up the night, making these heroic naked bodies, exposed to danger, emerge from the darkness like flashes. While searching for “Beauty…”, she portrays other trans women with different destinies, during open conversations about their experiences, their relationships with family, the question of sexual pleasure, etc.
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